Professional Soccer Is Halted In Spain

Submitted by mike on Sun, 05/17/2015 - 09:42

The national soccer federation of Spain made a controversial decision halt all professional games in the country. This was designed with the purpose of protesting a new laws designed to control the sale of the television rights to games.

The main concept of the new television rights law was to ensure that the massive monopoly on television and revenue in Spanish soccer could be broken. As of now, much of the soccer scene in Spain is dominated by Real Madrid and FC Barcelona. The two teams are valued at US $3 billion each and have managed to take in a dominant position in terms of getting more ratings and viewers while also attaining a greater amount of revenue over time.

The new television contract would work with collective bargaining to ensure that revenue and television airtime can be shared accordingly. This would be similar to what the Premier League uses in England. In addition, teams would no longer be allowed to create their own television deals.

This comes amid concerns that teams are generating extremely minimal amounts of money and that they are being hurt by Real Madrid and Barcelona. That is, those two teams have been taking in all the money and have made it very difficult for different teams elsewhere to get the money that they need just so they can also stay afloat.

This has also hurt the competitive balance of soccer in Spain. Last year, Atletico Madrid became only the first team in close to twenty years outside the big two to have won the national title. This also comes amid the fact that Atletico has only a third of the revenue that the two big sides have.

This move is all being done in the hopes of trying to preserve the quality of soccer in Spain and to create a sense of balance. However, the potential for teams to get the most could vary. The fact that so many games are being halted is a point that could clearly impact the ways how the game is going to be organized.